We begin today’s roundup with analysis of today’s hearing at the Supreme Court on the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census. First up, The Washington Post:
THE SUPREME COURT will hear arguments Tuesday about who counts, quite literally, in the eyes of the federal government. How many representatives the various states get in Congress for the decade beginning in 2020, along with how much money those states get from Congress, could be affected. At stake is not just the fate of the census, the constitutionally mandated every-10-years count of the U.S. population, but also whether the Trump administration will get away with one of its more glaring con jobs. [...] The evidence suggests that the question was included for nefarious purposes. If the high court does not intervene, it will lead to a less accurate count than would otherwise be possible.
Adam Liptak at The New York Times:
Critics say that adding the question would undermine the accuracy of the census because both legal and unauthorized immigrants might refuse to fill out the forms. By one government estimate, about 6.5 million people might decide not to participate.
That could reduce Democratic representation when congressional districts are allocated in 2021 and affect the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending. Courts have found that Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas could risk losing seats in the House, and that several states could lose federal money.